[Courrier ind?sirable] Re:[tied] Re: The meaning of life: PIE. *gWiH

> >> >This is my version:
> >> >Case breaks down in Romance. Some dimwits use nom. (-i, -ae >
> >> >-e) in the pl. for all cases, other dimwits use acc. (-os, -as).
> >> >The choice between those form becomes shibbolethized, so that
> >> >using 2.sg. -Vs etc is bad for you. It becomes replaced with -i.
> >>
> >> Except that this is falsified by the facts.
> >
> >> The nominative-accusative distinction (Nom -os, Acc. -o; pl. Nom
> >> -i, Acc -os) survived in areas where final -s was not regularly
> >> lost, and is abundantly attested in Old French and Old Occitan.
> >
> >OK. And?
>
> And that disproves your theory.

There must something here I don't understand. The fact that the case
distinction continued in French and Occitan shows that the s-endings
were not shibbolethized in Italian or what are you saying? Such a
shibboleth relationship is not something that is resolved with the
purge of one form overnight, it can drag on over centuries in various
dia- and sociolects.


Torsten